


The Second Step

by brilliant_or_insane



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Albany Era, Anniversary, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, References to Shakespeare, The Ides of March - Freeform, again we're just gonna pretend for story purposes, but i'm gonna pretend it does, floating around for personal possession, i also have no clue whether there would have been first editions of shakespeare, i don't actually know if this fits with the canon timeline, or how much it would cost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilliant_or_insane/pseuds/brilliant_or_insane
Summary: I nearly overcame my anxiety and gave it to him a hundred different times. Once I made an offhand joke and he laughed so genuinely, his handsome face blooming into an openness that his cultivated persona so rarely allows. For a moment I was pulled from my distraction by the conviction that it was only the nerves of the moment that lead me to doubt the value he places on my company, and I nearly reached into my pocket on the spot. And every time his face fell slightly when my preoccupation denied him the attention he sought, I wanted to present my gift at once and prove that whatever my faults may be, thinking too little of him is not one of them.





	The Second Step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thechestofsilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechestofsilver/gifts).



> The first draft of this story was written rather unexpectedly on Valentines Day, hence the themes of gift-giving on a significant and potentially romantic day of the year.
> 
> Many thanks to thechestofsilver, who gave me some excellent pointers on the rough draft, but more importantly without whom I would hardly be aware these characters exist, let alone know and love them so well.

All that day, I kept wondering if he remembered. I thought—or perhaps I only imagined—that he smiled a little more brightly than was typical when he opened the door that morning. He toasted crumpets to accompany our morning tea. When we went out for a stroll in the afternoon he kept on about it really being a lovely day, although so far as I could tell it was perfectly average, verging on foggy and dour. All day, in fact, he seemed to always be saying things simply for the sake of something being said, unwilling to let me disappear into my books or my writing—to which I would happily have run for distraction from my fraught nerves. Indeed I fear I may have been a bit snappish now and again. Although that didn’t keep him from purchasing a particularly good vintage wine for the both of us at the club that night.

None of this need have a deep or special meaning. We had recently nicked some really quality diamonds off a pretentious ass, and Raffles tends to a bit extravagant after a success like that. And these attention-seeking moods are wont to strike him now and again.

Not that these considerations kept my mind from leaping to the weight in my coat pocket every time he glanced my way.

I nearly overcame my anxiety and gave it to him a hundred different times. Once I made an offhand joke and he laughed so genuinely, his handsome face blooming into an openness that his cultivated persona so rarely allows. For a moment I was pulled from my distraction by the conviction that it was only the nerves of the moment that lead me to doubt the value he places on my company, and I nearly reached into my pocket on the spot. And every time his face fell slightly when my preoccupation denied him the attention he sought, I wanted to present my gift at once and prove that whatever my faults may be, thinking too little of him is not one of them.

I could hardly have explained why I found myself hesitating so. True, Raffles wasn’t one for grand shows of affection. Were he to know how much thought and effort I had put into the gift it would be cause for mild awkwardness at best, and at worst his reaction would confirm my fear that I was far more emotionally dependent on him than he was on me, as if the professional disparity between us weren’t enough. But there was no need for him to be privy to such information, nor even for him to be reminded of the anniversary that prompted the gift.

The trouble was … I wanted him to remember. The day we found each other again and I became his partner changed my life entirely, and the idea that it was only another day to him was acutely painful.

And so I found myself equally anxious to be understood and to be misunderstood, and now it was come to the point I couldn’t imagine any entirely positive outcome.

* * *

“Well, that was a pleasant day,” Raffles announced as we reentered his rooms that evening, speaking in a tone that wanted to mean it but didn’t, really. I confess I was too lost in my own pulse to wonder over it. 

“Hmm,” was all I managed.

“I say, Bunny, have you heard about Lord Chesworth? It seems his endeavors in India have finally paid off, and he’s been parading the spoils shamelessly about town. We’re comfortably provided for at the moment, of course, but it wouldn't hurt to keep …” Raffles trailed off as I nodded vaguely, pulled myself together at long last, and moved with purpose towards my coat hung by the door. Raffles had a poor habit of turning the conversation to burglary when he felt I wasn’t paying sufficient attention—it was a reliable means of getting a reaction of some sort—and I was telling myself that I’d best head him off before he resorted to waxing poetic about some belle he’d danced with at so-and-so’s party last week.

“Are you leaving already, Bunny? I suppose it is growing late, but I have got a rather nice bottle sherry if you’re in the mood for it, and we can call a cab for you in a bit—”

“No. Er, I mean that would be nice, excellent, yes, sherry sounds lovely. I meant to say no I didn’t plan to leave just yet. I’d just remembered—I picked something up the other day and then forgot it, but it made me think of you when I came across it, by chance—” I spoke the last of my meandering speech half over my shoulder as I reached into the largest pocket of my coat and grasped the worn copy of Shakespeare’s _Julius Caesar_ that I’d been protectively carrying about all day.

The book was a bit creased and ragged, and if it had ever had a proper binding it had deteriorated long ago. But it was a proper 17th century Folio edition, and Raffles likes that sort of thing. It took me months of searching and renewing old contacts I’d been avoiding out of shame for over a year to find it, and purchasing it cost me a little more than my share of Raffles’s latest success and a sharp stab of shame at his solemn look when he became aware that I was so soon unable to afford even simple luxuries. I suppose he thought I’d gambled away the provisions his cleverness had won me all at once. Yet I hadn’t regretted my acquisition for a moment before that day.

Now I was sure the whole thing had been a stupid plan, though I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was too much or too little or too revealing or just dull.

I drew the book out anyway and, making my way back to where Raffles stood, offered it to him with forced detachment, keeping my eyes on the book to avoid looking at him. “Julius Caesar. It’s quite old, I couldn’t get my hands on an exact date, but it was probably around while Shakespeare was still writing and all that. As I said, I happened upon it, and thought it might be the sort of thing you’d want.”

Raffles was silent for a long moment, and I was tempted to deposit the troublesome thing on the nearest surface and get out the door quick as I could manage. At last he stepped forward and took the small folio gently into his hands.

“Oh,” he breathed, “you did remember.”

I looked up at last to see him staring at the book with a half-pleased, half-stunned little smile, and I felt the blood rush to my face with pleasure and shame as I realized that he had known the date as well as I and had been trying to make a day of it while I acted like a disinterested ass.

But then a shadow passed across his expression, and he added with a chuckle I couldn’t quite believe, “Though I must say, it is a bit a dark take on the Ides of March, eh Bunny? Doomsday and betrayal and all that.”

“But that’s just it,” I answered, the words that had been stoppered up all day bursting out in a sudden rush. “It was a dark day—darkest of my life, I thought, and by all the signs and portents sure to be my last. I thought all that,” I gestured vaguely at the folio, “was my reality. But it wasn’t, and that’s thanks to you—you’re the reason the doom of that day is just a story in old book.” 

I hadn’t meant to say these things, only I’d thought them over and again until they had become a crafted speech rehearsed only in the safety of my own mind. Now they had begun to come out, they seemed bound to continue to the end. “Do you know what the Ides of March is, Raffles? It was the Roman Empire’s day on which all debts were settled. Judgement Day for tyrants and gamblers. But you did what Julius Caesar himself could not. You defied the day of judgement, and you won. This day is ours, now.”

My face was burning properly by the time all the words were out, and my voice was not entirely steady, and I half-wished it all unsaid the moment it was out, only Raffles’s striking eyes were fixed on mine with gleaming intensity. But he said only, “I don’t have anything for you. I didn't think …”

“You gave me my life,” I answered, firm and steady for the first time that day.

He nodded stiffly and said, “Next year, then,” and moved away to place the folio carefully on a bookshelf. He spoke hardly a word the rest of the evening, and thought he did offer me a glass of the sherry I now suspected he had purchased specially for that night, he would not meet my eyes. 

I left soon after, uncertain of my gift all over again, some frightened corner of me wondering if I had damaged this day and all it had brought by drawing attention to it. I was comforted only by the tenuous promise of “next year,” and my suspicion that his parting handshake had lingered a moment longer than necessity dictated.

* * *

For a week I could not find the courage to visit him again. But that Friday next he invited me to dine with him at the club, and taking heart in his manner seeming at least no more mysterious than was typical, I followed him after to the Albany, as was my habit when we dined out in those days.

A strange smile played about his lips and sparkled in his eyes as we strolled towards his apartments that evening, and he kept darting quick glances at me as we made our way up the stairs. It made me anxious, that smile, and I nearly asked him to explain it more than once, but there would be no point to it. Raffles never in his life explained a thing before he was ready.

Fortunately for my peace of mind, he did not make me wait long. He opened his door with just a hint of a flourish, I stepped inside, and there it was. 

It was displayed in pride of place at the center of the mantlepiece: a book bound in dark pine-green leather, tastefully adorned with gold leaf. Along the lower edge _William Shakespeare_ was written in elaborate cursive. But where the name of one of Shakespeare’s plays ought to have appeared there were inscribed the words: _The Ides of March_.

A surprised huff escaped me as I felt the weight of the past week lift from my chest. A proud smile began to dance about my lips as I asked, “Is that—?”

“Of course,” Raffles answered, watching my expression with an air of satisfaction. “The Ides of March, conquered and possessed, as you eloquently put it.”

“Once not enough for you, eh Raffles?” I chuckled. “You’ve gone and made the Ides beautiful all over again.”

Raffles frowned a little at that. “I hardly did it alone. Your participation was indispensable, Bunny.”

I grinned, “yes, well, it would be hard to bind a book you didn’t have, and I suppose the idea behind it was mine.”

“No, not only that,” Raffles was turned fully towards me now, speaking earnestly, “I mean you were invaluable the first time, a year ago.”

“Ah,” I responded. I shoved my hands in my pockets, suddenly uncomfortable and mostly failing to keep the humor in my voice. “Well, I can’t say I recall being much use that day besides gambling away money I didn’t have and—” I stopped short of saying, _and threatening to blow my brains out in your living room._

Raffles stepped close into my space, and although I kept resolutely facing the mantlepiece I noted with shock that his pupils had blown wide at the proximity. “You came to me, Bunny,” he said in that quietly commanding tone I have never managed to resist, and despite myself I turned toward him so that our bodies were mere inches from being pressed close. He continued, “There wouldn’t have been anything worth the doing that day, otherwise.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage. Showing up on his doorstep with my problems on display hardly seemed compensation for all he had done, but he seemed to think it was something, and perhaps that was enough.

“You took the first step,” he added, musingly. “You always seem to be doing that.” His eyes flickered briefly toward the book, then back to me.

“Well, you know I’ve never been a paragon of self-control,” I answered with a nervous chuckle, almost backing away for fear of where that very weakness might lead me if I stayed so close a moment longer, only to feel his hand slipping gently into mine.

“Perhaps it’s my turn to step first,” he said, and slowly, with questioning eyes giving me every permission to pull away if I wished, the beautiful face I had admired from every distance but this drew ever closer until his lips brushed gently against mine.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel it is important to note that Bunny is quite mistaken in his claim that Raffles “isn’t one for grand shows of affection.” Unfortunately Raffles is too stubbornly reticent on the topic of emotions for Bunny’s insecurity to allow him to recognize that, for example, when a man responds to the news that an old and previously out-if-touch school friend is hard up by promptly sharing a dangerous secret that could destroy his liberty and reputation and then robbing a jewelry store for him, it may be regarded by some as a not-insignificant sign of regard and emotional attatchment.


End file.
